Tuesday 12th November

I’ve just taken the dogs for their evening walk, and it is, you guessed it – cold, wet and miserable.  And the weather here in Blighty often is.  And we rightly complain.  The cold goes right through you, and some days you just can’t even begin to get dry.  And Seasonally Affected Disorder or not, this wintry weather makes most of us pretty miserable too.  I used to be an avid weather forecast watcher, but mostly nowadays, although I do watch it, like the news; ask me ten minutes later what was it about and I struggle to remember anything.  But it used to be almost a standing joke that the one place in Britain you could guarantee would have rain was Lerwick.  I used to listen out for it, and nine times out of ten I was right.  Rain in Lerwick.  So, who would choose to live there?  Surprisingly despite the heavy rainfall rather a lot of people and it is one of the happier communities around.

And today of course I cannot forget the news.  It has been the same all weekend, and will be for days I am sure.  The terrible pictures, the eye witness accounts, the polite woman shivering behind a wire fence asking that if we had some water and food – then she looks away, embarrassed, then back at the camera and says – maybe, you could give us some.   I found this the most poignant of appeals.  And we still have no idea of the scale of the problem.  Just like the tsunami of 2002, there aren’t enough people to count, let alone bury the dead.

I have known quite a few Filipinos, they are lovely people.  Small and unassuming, and just like that woman at the wire, polite.   One can only imagine their pain as they sit cold, wet and miserable and waiting, waiting, waiting for some relief.